How To Mine Bitcoins, TechCrunch

How To Mine Bitcoins, TechCrunch

How To Mine Bitcoins

Mining bitcoins – a process that helps manage bitcoin transactions as well as create fresh “wealth” – is the fresh Beanie Babies. Fortunately for us, however, bitcoins seem to be going up in value and should maintain their value over time, unlike your mint condition Lil’ the wedged Chihuahua.

But how do you get bitcoins? You can begin by buying them outright, but the market is presently wild. At $188 per coin, the direction of the bitcoin is anyone’s guess right now and, unlike equities, these things don’t split. In brief, you should very likely mine. But what is bitcoin mining?

Think of it as work done by groups of people to find large prime numbers or attempting keys to decrypt a file. You can read a lot more about it here but just understand that for every block mined you get twenty five coins or, at current rates, $Four,722.25. Presently a single bitcoin is valued at $188, an alarming result that is most likely caused by money movements related to Cyprus and a general bubble-like excitement over the platform in general. In fact, many wager that the DDOS attacks on many bitcoin-related services are direct activity by hackers to inject instability in order to reduce the price.

As it stands, mining solo is very almost deprecated. The process of finding blocks is now so popular and the difficulty of finding a block so high that it could take over three years to generate any coins. While you could simply set a machine aside and have it run the algorithms endlessly, the energy cost and equipment deprecation will eventually cost more than the actual bitcoins are worth.

Pooled mining, however, is far more lucrative. Using a service like “Slush’s pool” (more on that later) you can split the work among a ground of people. Using this equation:

While this is simplified, it is basically how the system works. You work for shares in a block and when finish you get a percentage of the block based on the number of workers alongside you, less fees. Using this method, I have been able to raise about $1.50 over the weekend by running a dormant PC. The astute among you will note that I very likely used twice that amount of electrical play.

Being a neophile, I’m astonished it took me so long to commence mining. My acquaintance Tom explained how to set up a pooled mining account so I thought it would be interesting to share the instructions.

1. Get a wallet. You can either store your wallet locally or store it online. Coinbase.com is an online wallet that is remarkably elementary to set up. Wallets require you to use or download a fairly large blockchain file – about 6GB – so downloading and updating a local wallet may be a non-starter. Like all wealth storage mediums, keeping your bitcoins “local” is very likely a better idea than trusting a web service, but that’s a matter of private preference. There is no preferred wallet type and there are evident trade-offs to both. Privacy advocates would very likely say a local wallet is best.

You can download a local wallet here but make sure you keep a copy of your data backed up.

Once you’ve created a wallet, you get an address like this: 1BEkUGADFbrEShQb9Xr4pKPtM8jAyiNQsJ. This, without the period, is a direct way to send bitcoins to your wallet. Make a note of your address. In Coinbase, the wallet address found under linked accounts.

Two. Join a pool. To mine in a pool you have to work with a group of other miners on available blocks. The most popular is Slush’s Pool found here. You can also attempt guilds like BTC Guild as well as a number of other options. Each of the pools is characterized mostly by the fees they charge per block – 2% for Slush’s pool, for example – and the number of users. Pools with fewer users could also have a slower discovery time but pools with many users usually result in smaller payments.

How can you be sure the pool proprietor doesn’t steal all your bitcoins? You can’t. However, as one pool proprietor, Slush, notes:

For simplicity’s sake, I’m using Slush’s Pool and have created three workers. Very first, create a pool login. Then add workers. The workers are sub-accounts with their own passwords and are usually identified by [yourlogin].[workername]. I have three workers running, presently – one on my iMac and two on my old PC.

You must create workers to mine. The instructions are very straightforward for most services so don’t become dazed. Like any online club, you can dig deeply into the subculture surround bitcoin as you build up practice. I like to think of it as a financial MMORPG.

Also be sure to come in your wallet address into the pool information. This will ensure you get your bitcoins.

Trio. Get a miner. There are a number of mining options for numerous platforms albeit OSX users may find themselves in a bit of a pickle. Miners use spare GPU cycles to power the mining operation, much like services like SETI@Home uses spare cycles for finding intelligent life. Miners, on the other palm, use these cycles to help treat peer-to-peer processes associated with bitcoins. Thus by doing “work” you are maintaining the network as well.

GUIMiner is the simplest solution for Windows users as it permits you to create miners using almost all standard graphics cards. You can download it here. 50Miner is also a popular solution. Both require you to come in your worker info and pool and they’ll embark mining.

Linux users can run miners like CGMiner. An excellent guide to installing a miner on Ubuntu is available here.

OS X users can use DiabloMiner, a two-year old command-line program that will mine using OpenCL. Sadly, it uses deprecated calls to Bitcoin and is fairly a bit slower. As a result, you need to run your own proxy, Stratum, that permits Diablo to connect with services like Slush’s pool. Both of these programs usually run without issue on OS X albeit you may need to install OpenCL for OSX.

To mine I’ve created a script that I run in Terminal that simply runs the proxy in the background and then connects Diablo. Note the last two arguments are necessary for Mountain Lion.

RPCMiner is far lighter to run – you simply click an icon and come in some data – and both have very rudimentary, text-based interfaces. Running Diablo on my iMac has not had much effect on application spectacle under OS X albeit it does slow down my Windows eight machine considerably.

Four. Keep your mind on your money. Bitcoins are baffling in that they are frantically plain to use and mine. Speculators, then, would most likely be able to throw hundreds of machines at the problem and gather bitcoins like raindrops, right? Wrong. As more bitcoins are found, they become more difficult to find. This profitability calculator will help you understand what you’re up against but understand that this isn’t a sure thing. I’ve run my systems for a weekend and seen a mere $1.50 – enough for a coke – but other users may have improved hardware and methods to succeed. In brief, if it costs more to run your hardware than you build up in bitcoins, you’re very likely doing something wrong.

Good luck in your journey and love your very first foray into this wild and wooly world.

How To Mine Bitcoins, TechCrunch

How To Mine Bitcoins

Mining bitcoins – a process that helps manage bitcoin transactions as well as create fresh “wealth” – is the fresh Beanie Babies. Fortunately for us, however, bitcoins seem to be going up in value and should maintain their value over time, unlike your mint condition Lil’ the slammed Chihuahua.

But how do you get bitcoins? You can begin by buying them outright, but the market is presently wild. At $188 per coin, the direction of the bitcoin is anyone’s guess right now and, unlike equities, these things don’t split. In brief, you should very likely mine. But what is bitcoin mining?

Think of it as work done by groups of people to find large prime numbers or attempting keys to decrypt a file. You can read a lot more about it here but just understand that for every block mined you get twenty five coins or, at current rates, $Four,722.25. Presently a single bitcoin is valued at $188, an alarming result that is very likely caused by money movements related to Cyprus and a general bubble-like excitement over the platform in general. In fact, many wager that the DDOS attacks on many bitcoin-related services are direct activity by hackers to inject instability in order to reduce the price.

As it stands, mining solo is very almost deprecated. The process of finding blocks is now so popular and the difficulty of finding a block so high that it could take over three years to generate any coins. While you could simply set a machine aside and have it run the algorithms endlessly, the energy cost and equipment deprecation will eventually cost more than the actual bitcoins are worth.

Pooled mining, however, is far more lucrative. Using a service like “Slush’s pool” (more on that later) you can split the work among a ground of people. Using this equation:

While this is simplified, it is basically how the system works. You work for shares in a block and when finish you get a percentage of the block based on the number of workers alongside you, less fees. Using this method, I have been able to raise about $1.50 over the weekend by running a dormant PC. The astute among you will note that I very likely used twice that amount of tens unit.

Being a neophile, I’m astonished it took me so long to begin mining. My acquaintance Tom explained how to set up a pooled mining account so I thought it would be interesting to share the instructions.

1. Get a wallet. You can either store your wallet locally or store it online. Coinbase.com is an online wallet that is remarkably ordinary to set up. Wallets require you to use or download a fairly large blockchain file – about 6GB – so downloading and updating a local wallet may be a non-starter. Like all wealth storage mediums, keeping your bitcoins “local” is most likely a better idea than trusting a web service, but that’s a matter of private preference. There is no preferred wallet type and there are visible trade-offs to both. Privacy advocates would very likely say a local wallet is best.

You can download a local wallet here but make sure you keep a copy of your data backed up.

Once you’ve created a wallet, you get an address like this: 1BEkUGADFbrEShQb9Xr4pKPtM8jAyiNQsJ. This, without the period, is a direct way to send bitcoins to your wallet. Make a note of your address. In Coinbase, the wallet address found under linked accounts.

Two. Join a pool. To mine in a pool you have to work with a group of other miners on available blocks. The most popular is Slush’s Pool found here. You can also attempt guilds like BTC Guild as well as a number of other options. Each of the pools is characterized mostly by the fees they charge per block – 2% for Slush’s pool, for example – and the number of users. Pools with fewer users could also have a slower discovery time but pools with many users usually result in smaller payments.

How can you be sure the pool possessor doesn’t steal all your bitcoins? You can’t. However, as one pool proprietor, Slush, notes:

For simplicity’s sake, I’m using Slush’s Pool and have created three workers. Very first, create a pool login. Then add workers. The workers are sub-accounts with their own passwords and are usually identified by [yourlogin].[workername]. I have three workers running, presently – one on my iMac and two on my old PC.

You must create workers to mine. The instructions are very straightforward for most services so don’t become dazed. Like any online club, you can dig deeply into the subculture surround bitcoin as you build up practice. I like to think of it as a financial MMORPG.

Also be sure to come in your wallet address into the pool information. This will ensure you get your bitcoins.

Trio. Get a miner. There are a number of mining options for numerous platforms albeit OSX users may find themselves in a bit of a pickle. Miners use spare GPU cycles to power the mining operation, much like services like SETI@Home uses spare cycles for finding intelligent life. Miners, on the other mitt, use these cycles to help treat peer-to-peer processes associated with bitcoins. Thus by doing “work” you are maintaining the network as well.

GUIMiner is the simplest solution for Windows users as it permits you to create miners using almost all standard graphics cards. You can download it here. 50Miner is also a popular solution. Both require you to inject your worker info and pool and they’ll commence mining.

Linux users can run miners like CGMiner. An excellent guide to installing a miner on Ubuntu is available here.

OS X users can use DiabloMiner, a two-year old command-line program that will mine using OpenCL. Sadly, it uses deprecated calls to Bitcoin and is fairly a bit slower. As a result, you need to run your own proxy, Stratum, that permits Diablo to connect with services like Slush’s pool. Both of these programs usually run without issue on OS X albeit you may need to install OpenCL for OSX.

To mine I’ve created a script that I run in Terminal that simply runs the proxy in the background and then connects Diablo. Note the last two arguments are necessary for Mountain Lion.

RPCMiner is far lighter to run – you simply click an icon and inject some data – and both have very rudimentary, text-based interfaces. Running Diablo on my iMac has not had much effect on application spectacle under OS X albeit it does slow down my Windows eight machine considerably.

Four. Keep your mind on your money. Bitcoins are baffling in that they are frantically plain to use and mine. Speculators, then, would very likely be able to throw hundreds of machines at the problem and gather bitcoins like raindrops, right? Wrong. As more bitcoins are found, they become more difficult to find. This profitability calculator will help you understand what you’re up against but understand that this isn’t a sure thing. I’ve run my systems for a weekend and seen a mere $1.50 – enough for a coke – but other users may have improved hardware and methods to succeed. In brief, if it costs more to run your hardware than you build up in bitcoins, you’re most likely doing something wrong.

Good luck in your journey and love your very first foray into this wild and wooly world.

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